New employees are typically assigned to just the department/team which they have been recruited as part of the onboarding process, focusing purely on the responsibilities and tasks which they have been employed to undertake.

This unfortunately means it can take months for new employees to truly understand how they interface with other departments, and in turn truly understand the services (end-to-end) which they interface with. Equally they can feel alienated from other departments for far too long.

However, it would be good practice if part of the onboarding process comprised of new starters spending a period of time assigned to other departments to improve overall awareness and familiarity, particularly those departments/teams where the new starter’s expected tasks and responsibilities have a close dependency/relationship.

This also promotes collaborative working and early identification for service improvement.